


A Time-Honoured Tradition

by RubyCaspar



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Brooklyn Nine-Nine Holiday Gift Exchange 2015, F/M, and spiders, anyway pretend it's still Christmas, i'm so sorry!, rated for language, really really late, wow this is late
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 04:49:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5814892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyCaspar/pseuds/RubyCaspar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Jake and Amy's first Christmas living together, and Amy is determined to make the most of it. Now is the perfect time for them to start some new holiday traditions, the kind of things they could tell their kids about in years to come. </p><p>Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Time-Honoured Tradition

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gabby-dawson](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=gabby-dawson).



> OMG I cannot BELIEVE how long it's taken me to write this, and to gabby_dawson I can only say: I am so, so, SO sorry. I hope the story makes up for the wait - it's turned out pretty lengthy, but that definitely doesn't make up for it, especially as you gave up your time to actually organise the whole exchange and haven't had your present yet :( I'm the worst. 
> 
> Anyway, er, Merry Christmas...

The thing about Christmas traditions is that you’re kind of reliant on your family to provide them for you. And that’s fine - great - when you’re a kid, and when you’re a young adult, and sometimes even beyond, but it gets to a point when you feel old enough to create some traditions of your own.

 

For Amy, Christmas was always fatiguing. It was fun, obviously, and she loved spending time with her family, but there were just _so many of them,_ and Santiago family traditions tended to be centred around games designed to tire out a large group of children. So not only did Amy end up exhausted, but she also ended up feeling like a teenager again. It was a feeling she was used to, being a single woman who often visited her childhood home, but… it got to a point where it wasn’t okay anymore.

 

It was one of the main reasons she was excited to be moving in with Jake. Sure there were all the being in love, taking the next step, committing to each other reasons and they were great too, but they got their keys on the 20th December and Amy was so, _so_ excited to have a chance to create some Christmas traditions with Jake. Some of her parents’ most cherished Christmas traditions had started during their first holiday together, and Amy wanted that for herself: she wanted to share something special with Jake that they could pass onto their children and celebrate for years to come.

 

It made her blush to think about it, but there it was.

 

As Christmas was on a Sunday neither of them had to worry about work, Jake’s mom was visiting friends in Florida, and Amy’s parents had allowed the ‘we want to spend time alone  in our new apartment’ excuse - which meant they were going to be free and alone for three blissful days. They could start _so many_ traditions.

 

Jake had other plans.

 

“Amazing- we can spend the whole weekend eating takeout and watching movies,” he’d said when their leave for the 26th was approved.

 

“What? No - that's what we do every weekend,” Amy had protested. “It's Christmas, it's got to be special - we’re not spending it eating Chinese and watching _Die Hard_.”

 

“Well it's not like either of us can cook,” Jake had argued. “We’ll get the fancy deli takeout. And _Die Hard_ is a Christmas movie - it's literally the perfect time of the year to watch it!”

 

“Not a chance.”

 

It didn’t matter that Jake wasn’t planning special Christmas traditions - Amy had plenty in mind for both of them. She dove into the unpacking and had the apartment completely set up by the evening of the 23rd, and she was ready for the tradition-making to commence on Christmas Eve.

 

Things didn’t get off to the _best_ start. Amy had planned for them to go ice skating on Christmas Eve and then go to buy a Christmas, but Jake and Charles got a breakthrough in a robbery case they were working in the evening of the 23rd and so they both had to work on the 24th.

 

These things happen when you're a cop and so Amy just changed the date of their ice skating tickets and went to have lunch with Rosa and Gina instead and didn't worry about it. They would still have time to do all their decorating in the evening.

 

Jake and Charles got their perp, so it was worth it, but Jake had to stay late to finish the paperwork. The tree place closed at seven, so Amy had to go alone.

 

Which was, you know, _fine_. Obviously it would have been great to go together, but they'd still get to decorate it together and everything, and these things happened.

 

There wasn't much choice since it was basically the last possible moment to buy a tree, but Amy picked an okay one out and managed to get it back to the apartment without too much trouble. Okay, so she kind of pulled some muscles in her back, but a few minutes of stretching made it okay.

 

Amy got the tree into place and unwrapped it and left it to stand, ready to be decorated, and went to the kitchen to work on the turkey. Jake had alternated between pretending to be scared of eating it and trying to talk her out of it, but Amy was determined to cook them a turkey for Christmas lunch. She wasn’t the world’s best cook, she accepted this about herself, but there were a few very select meals that she could muddle her way through, and why shouldn’t turkey be one of those meals? You basically put the bird in the oven and left it for a long time - it was the kind of hands-off cooking that Amy felt she could excel at. She was being smart about it - she’d bought the smallest turkey she could find, and she was following her aunt’s advice to the letter: smother it in butter and herbs, put it upside down in the pan so that the juices ran into the breast, and put it on overnight.

 

It was almost nine by the time Jake got in, and Amy had just finished washing the butter off her hands. The turkey was in the oven, ready to be put on when they went to bed. Everything was completely under control.

 

“Hey,” said Jake, sidling up behind her and hugging her from behind. “The kitchen’s a disaster so I’m guessing you’ve been attempting to cook.”

 

“Shut up,” Amy said immediately, even while leaning back into his chest with a sigh. Jake’s arms tightened for a moment and he kissed her temple before pulling away.

 

“Well I brought pizza,” he said. “And if it’s a choice between that and whatever it is you’ve been doing then, sorry Ames, I love you but-”

 

Amy swatted at him with the dish cloth she was holding. “I was preparing the turkey,” she said loftily.

 

Jake pursed his lips. “I should have got a bigger pizza, we’re going to need leftovers for tomorrow.”

 

“Oh shut _up_ ,” Amy said again, refusing to let her mouth so much as twitch into a smile. “Get some plates for the pizza while I clean up this mess.”

 

Jake grinned and got plates and drinks for them while Amy quickly cleared the butter wrappers, utensils and spilled herbs from the countertop. Honestly, the mess wasn’t _that_ bad - Jake was such a drama queen.

 

Case in point: once their pizza was eaten it took Amy a full five minutes to get Jake to stand up and start decorating with her.

 

“I can definitely help from here,” he tried after a few minutes of bickering. “You need someone observing be general composition.”

 

“Get up.”

 

Jake rolled his eyes and finally got to his feet to help, but he swore when he saw the three large boxes of decorations by the tree.

 

“Holy crap Amy where did you get all of this?”

 

Amy coloured slightly. “Oh, just, you know, here and there,” she said. Okay, so she might have gone a tad overboard on the decorations. She'd bought all that she'd needed on her list for her design for the room, but then she kept seeing little pieces in other shops that were too cute to walk by, so she'd ended up with a bit more than she'd intended.

 

Jake lifted a dancing Santa doll out of one of the boxes and grinned, and Amy relaxed. Jake wasn't going to care.

 

Decorating the tree was just as fun as Amy had imagined, and though it wasn’t quite as symmetrical by the end as Amy would have liked, it was still a job well done.

 

Hanging the garlands Amy had bought didn't have quite the same success rate. They hung the first garland on the wall next the tree but when she stood back Amy saw that it was far too low. Jake rolled his eyes at her but obediently fetched a chair from the kitchen so they could move it up… and that’s when about six inches of wallpaper came off the wall with the garland.

 

“Oh my god!” Amy shrieked, letting go and swaying on the chair - Jake’s hands on her hips steadied her, and he kept them in place as he leant round her to look.

 

“Whoops.”

 

“ _Whoops_?” Amy repeated incredulously, glaring down at him. “Look what happened! Oh my god.”

 

Jake shrugged. “Well, we hate that wallpaper anyway,” he said.

 

“That is _not_ the point,” Amy mumbled, turning back to the wall. The garland was still attached to the paper by the special decorating tape Amy had bought, and the weight of it was slowly peeling even more paper away. Amy quickly tore the paper to prevent further damage, wincing as she did so.

 

There was a sudden flash, and Amy looked round to find Jake just lowering his phone. He grinned. “Ruined wall selfie,” he said with a shrug.

 

“This isn’t funny Jake - we’re going to have to redecorate.”

 

“We were already planning on redecorating.”

 

“Yeah but not _right away_ …” Amy pulled a face and jumped down so she could reposition the chair and take down the other side. Jake followed her.

 

“We can just put up a picture to hide it,” he said as Amy tried to remove the rest of the garland without damaging the wallpaper any further. She was unsuccessful.

 

“We can just up _two_ pictures to hide it,” Jake amended.

 

Amy sighed and got down again. “It’s the special tape,” she said forlornly. “It’s too strong for the paper. What a con - the packaging said it worked on all wall types, including paper, wood and plaster.”

 

“It does work - just a bit too well.”

 

“Well it’s all I have - so we can’t put anything else up,” Amy said. “We don’t have any hooks or anything that we can hang the garlands from so we’ll just have to… just have the tree.”

 

“And the dancing santa.”

 

Jake was smiling at her, clearly unconcerned, and Amy felt furious with herself when she felt a lump in her throat. She grabbed the chair and marched into the kitchen with it, putting it back into place with a little too much force. She tightened her hands on its sides for a moment and forced herself to calm down. Okay, so the decorating hadn’t gone quite the way she’d planned, but the tree looked great, Jake was right about the wallpaper being hideous, and at least they’d discovered the problem before putting up garlands all over the place.  It was fine.

 

When she got back into the lounge, Jake had arranged three of the garlands around the dancing santa so it looked like he was erupting from a holly, ivy and tinsel volcano. Amy smiled and reached up to peck Jake on the cheek.

 

“Come on, let’s just go to bed,” she said, tugging on his hand and heading towards the bedroom.

 

“Good idea - if we’re awake when Santa comes he won’t leave us any presents.”

 

“Exactly.”

 

It was an hour later, just as Amy was finally drifting off to sleep, that she remembered the turkey. She jumped out of bed and ran into the kitchen to turn the oven on, putting it ten degrees higher than she'd intended to make up for the lost time. No harm done.

 

XXX

 

Amy woke up slowly and lazily on Christmas morning, which was definitely a first. She was also burrowed against Jake's side and had her leg slung over his, and his hand was rubbing lazy circles on her shoulder. That was also a first for Christmas, and definitely something Amy could get used to.

 

It took them half an hour to leave the bed, but eventually the prospect of gifts and a whole day off together was enough to entice them from under the warm blankets and into the horrifically cheesily-patterned flannel pyjamas that Amy had bought especially for Christmas morning. Jake looked equal parts adorable and ridiculous, and she was about the same in the selfie he took of the two of them.

 

The smell of the turkey hit them as soon as they opened the door to the hallway. And it was actually _good_.

 

_Ha! Take that everyone who doubted Amy's culinary skills!_

 

Amy made a show of sniffing the air. “Mmm… the turkey smells amazing,” she said. “Doesn't it?” She poked Jake’s side. “Doesn't it smell amazing?”

 

Jake rolled his eyes but couldn't keep the smile off his face. “Yes, okay, the turkey smells good,” he said.

 

“ _Amazing_ ,” Amy insisted as he followed her into the kitchen.

 

“You know, it's not really in the spirit of the holiday to-”

 

Jake cut off abruptly and Amy dragged her eyes away from the oven to look at him. He'd gone pale.

 

“What?”

 

Jake swallowed, and Amy noticed how still he was standing. “There's, like, twenty spiders on the floor,” he said.

 

Amy spun round to look at the spot of the floor he was fixated on and saw that there were, indeed, spiders on the floor.

 

She swallowed. “That's only seven,” she said, unable to help herself.

 

Jake snapped out of his frozen state. “ _Only seven_?” He repeated incredulously. “Seven is still a bad enough number of spiders to have in our apartment!”

 

Amy could hardly disagree.

 

“And there's another one!” Said Jake wildly, pointing to the dining area of the kitchen. “And another! Where are they coming from?!”

 

Amy just shook her head, staring at the spiders. He was right - there were _loads_ of them. They were all the same breed, and they were really tiny. And they seemed to be in a vague semblance of a line…

 

“Oh my god,” Amy said with a sinking sense of realisation. “I… I think they're babies. There must be a nest somewhere.”

 

She looked back at Jake and cringed. “We should… follow the trail I guess.”

 

Jake pulled a disgusted face that Amy might have found comical had she not been feeling the exact same way. She clenched her fists determinedly and carefully stepped around the clump of spiders on the floor and started to follow the trail of tiny spiders into the living room, Jake on her heels.

 

If she didn't know any better, she would suspect him of using her as a shield.

 

The line of spiders wove across the living room floor, up the sideboard and over the dancing Santa - Amy cringed again at the sight - and then across the top of the sideboard and onto the wall. Her eyes followed it into the corner where the Christmas tree stood, and her heart sank.

 

“Oh no.”

 

“It's the tree!” Jake exclaimed, pointing. He stepped back from Amy and turned to face her. “You got a tree with a spider’s nest. It's a spider tree.”

 

“Oh don't be so dramatic,” said Amy. She swallowed hard and tried to think. “We just need to…” she swallowed again, “round them up and…”

 

“Yeah, good luck with that,” said Jake. He sounded further away than before, and Amy turned to find him on the other side of the room, edging towards the hallway.

 

Amy felt her composure snap. “Oh come on Jake!”

 

“No. No way,” Jake said vehemently, shaking his head. “I'm retreating to the bedroom and closing the door.”

 

Amy glared at him. “You are _not_ leaving me alone to clear up the spiders,” she said flatly.

 

Jake stood his ground for about three seconds before groaning and coming back over. Amy patted him on the shoulder, and he glared at her.

 

Rounding up the baby spiders was just about the grossest thing Amy had ever had to do. Luckily they were mostly all connected by invisible spider threads and you could get a lot of them in one go. She and Jake wore rubber gloves and used paper, kitchen utensils and just about anything they could find to gather them up and put them in a deep Tupperware box without getting too close to them. Jake took about five selfies of them, and neither of them needed to exaggerate the revulsion on their faces for the camera.

 

They started in the kitchen, where they found about five spiders crawling over the fancy bagels Amy had bought for their breakfast. The bagels were in paper bags, but Amy and Jake took one look at each other and silently agreed to throw them away.

 

They followed the trail to the sideboard with minimal fuss, but found so many spiders hiding in the garland that they just grabbed a rubbish sack and tipped the whole thing in, leaving the dancing Santa bare but arachnid-free.

 

“Oh god. This is the worst,” Jake groaned as he tied the rubbish sack. “I can't believe you bought a spider tree.”

 

Amy pursed her lips. “I can't believe you wanted a pet tarantula,” she threw back at him.

 

Jake gave her an attempt at a dignified glare and turned away to the rest of the trail. Another couple of minutes had the remaining spiders in the Tupperware box, and Amy snapped the lid on, resolutely ignoring the feeling of phantom tiny legs crawling all over her.

 

Jake was using a wooden spoon to poke at the tree around the remains of the nest, checking for any strays, and he stopped suddenly.

 

“Um… is that another nest?”

 

Amy scrambled over. “Where?” Jake pointed with the spoon and there, a couple of branches below the scrappy remains of the other nest, was a clump of dense white silky stuff - an unmistakable spider’s nest. It was twice the size of the one that had hatched.

 

“ _Damnit_ ,” Amy said. She bit her lip. “Maybe we can… scrape it off?”

 

Jake took a step back and waved the spoon at the tree. “After you.”

 

Amy shuddered at the thought of even touching the nest - what if it, like, _burst_ or something and all the spiders… _urgh_.  

 

“We have to throw the tree out, don't we?” Said Amy eventually.

 

“It’s that or kill it with fire,” said Jake.

“Okay,” said Amy. She felt that stupid lump in her throat again, and stepped away from the tree abruptly. “I'll get the boxes for the decorations.”

 

Amy told herself to get a grip as she went to the hallway closet for the boxes. It was just a tree, it wasn’t the end of the world. It was just that… well, without the tree, the only decoration they would have in the apartment was the ridiculous dancing santa. And she’d made an ornament for the tree with a picture of the two of them which she was going to give to Jake and then they could put it on the tree together and she would make a new one every year with a new picture of them and eventually they could have pictures with their kids too and maybe they could help her make the ornament in the future… whatever. It was fine. It didn’t matter.

 

And so, instead of drinking spiked coffee and exchanging gifts as Amy had envisioned, she and Jake spent their first Christmas morning together taking the decorations off of their tree as carefully as possible - both of them were terrified that a sudden movement would awake the spiders in the other nest. Jake insisted on taking selfies of them as they went, and Amy pushed down her sadness at losing the tree and pulled faces for his phone camera as she packed the tree lights back into their boxes. He also got a good one of her shrieking when she realised there were two spiders that they’d missed on her arm.

 

They changed out of their cosy pyjamas and, after a brief argument about who should hold the end nearest the spider’s nest (Amy won) maneuvered the tree out of the apartment, down the stairs and down a couple of blocks to be thrown in the dumpster down the nearest alley. The spider-filled Tupperware went in the dumpster too - the spiders were lucky that Amy took the lid off; she’d been tempted to just let them all suffocate. Jake insisted on another selfie with their forlorn tree, and then they hurried back to the apartment.

 

Amy had hoped that _something_ would be open in the neighbourhood, but there was nothing but closed signs - which meant they had to make do with a breakfast of slightly stale toast as they unwrapped their gifts, which were just small silly things as they’d both agreed that all their money should go into their new apartment and not on each other this year.

 

_Merry Christmas._

 

At least they had the turkey to look forward to. Amy turned the oven right down to just keep it warm, and went to work on the vegetables. Jake offered to help but Amy refused: she was going to cook this lunch alone, damnit, and it was going to be _good_ , and Jake was going to eat it and enjoy it and not be able to make fun of her cooking for once.

 

At least that was the _plan_.

 

First the carrots got burnt. Amy isn’t entirely sure how it happened - she was trying to steam them, but she maybe didn’t quite understand how the steaming process worked, or something… and she also realised that the carrots would be cold by the time she’d made roast potatoes so she needed to shut them off and she did but they stayed on the hob and it was an electric hob so it took a while for it to cool down and… yeah. Alright. That was an error.

 

And then the potatoes were overcooked - again, this was not Amy’s fault, they just… she just boiled them for a tiny bit too long and again the hob didn’t cool down fast enough and when it came to put them in the roasting pan they were kind of one big pan of watery mush instead of separate potatoes. Amy decided to turn them into mashed potatoes instead but they were super watery and kind of like soup.

 

Well, they were just going to have to have turkey and cabbage. It was fine.

 

You’ve probably guessed that it wasn’t fine.

 

Steam poured out of the oven when Amy opened the door - she threw open the kitchen window and waved a cloth around until it had cleared, and then approached the oven nervously. She couldn’t smell burning or anything so it was probably okay… one glance told her it wasn’t.

 

The turkey was about half the size it had started out as. The meat had peeled away from the bones and shrunk, and the entire thing was a deep brown colour. Amy took the tray out with shaking hands but even she could see that it was hopeless. It was completely, utterly overdone.

 

“Wow, okay.”

 

Amy spun round at the sound of Jake’s voice, just in time for him to snap a photo of her and the turkey.

 

“Don’t. Say. A. Word,” she said through gritted teeth.

 

Jake grinned. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said.

 

Amy threw an oven glove at his face and turned back to the turkey. There had to be some way of saving it. Some of it. Right?

 

Her hands shook slightly as she took out a fork and a carving knife, and she took a deep breath to calm herself.

 

“Well at least we know it’s not underdone,” quipped Jake.

 

“I’m holding a knife and I know how to play the legal system, back off,” Amy retorted. Jake snorted but held up his hands in surrender and leant against the counter to watch.

 

The meat on the legs was unsalvageable. Amy used the knife as a lever to lift the turkey up and get at the breast meat, but most of it was stuck to the bottom of the pan. The carcass and the meat broke apart with a cracking sound - Amy was fairly positive that meat wasn’t supposed to _crack_.

 

Amy could feel Jake _shaking_ with silent laughter next to her, but she refused to look at him. “I don’t understand,” she said after a few deep breaths.

 

“I’d say,” Jake said carefully, obviously trying to stop himself from laughing out loud, “that it was in the oven for too long. Now I’m no expert-”

 

“But Auntie Carla said to do it overnight!” Amy exclaimed. “She said she always does it.”

 

“Auntie Carla’s turkey is probably, like, five times bigger though, right?”

 

“I-” Amy started, and then stopped. He was right. Of _course_ he was right. Amy didn’t attempt roasting meat usually because she knew the timing was really crucial, which is why the idea of cooking the turkey overnight was such an appealing one to her, but Jake was totally right - she had managed to find a tiny turkey for the two of them, and Auntie Carla cooked for twenty-three.

 

“Oh god,” Amy groaned, leaning back against the counter and putting her head in her hands.

 

After a moment Amy felt a kiss on back of her hand and then Jake was there, pinning her against the counter with his arms either side of her.

 

“Aaaamyyyy,” he sang softly. “Come on, out you come.”

 

Amy sighed and dropped her hands, and winced at the grin on Jake's face. “I can't believe this,” she said.

 

Jake smirked. “Really, you can't believe it? Really?” He said. “Given your track record in the kitchen… _really_?”

 

Amy poked him in the stomach. “Shut up,” she said. She sighed again and toyed with the collar of Jake's shirt. “I really wanted to do good on this one.”

 

Jake kissed her softly and then smiled at her; she couldn't help but smile back. The smile quickly faded.

 

“We don't have any other food.”

 

“Okay, so, don't take this the wrong way,” Jake said, pulling away. “But we do.”

 

Amy frowned. “What?”

 

Jake was opening the freezer and pulling something out. “I, er, kind of prepared for this eventuality.” He had the grace to look a little ashamed, and while Amy wanted to feel slighted about his lack of faith in her cooking skills, the rational part of her had to admit that she hadn't given him much cause to have any such faith…plus she was hungry, and mostly just relieved that there was something to eat in the apartment after all.

 

Amy rolled her eyes when she saw what Jake was holding though- microwave turkey dinners.

 

“Really?” She said flatly.

 

Jake grinned. “Really really,” he said in an atrocious scottish accent. “I'll take over in here - go and find something good on TV.”

 

Amy wanted to argue but, honestly, she was fed up with the kitchen. So she took a bottle of wine from the fridge, grabbed a glass, and headed back to the living room.

 

A glass of wine had a soothing effect, and by the time Jake brought out their microwave dinners Amy was able to look back on how much of a disaster the day had been so far with a zen-like sense of detachment.

 

Really. She was _totally fine_.

 

“So what are we watching?” Jake asked as he sat down.

 

“ _The Grinch_ ,” said Amy, pressing play on the DVD and sitting back.

 

Jake snorted. “Very fitting,” he said. “We’re basically like the Whos after all their stuff was stolen right now.”

 

“Exactly,” said Amy with a grin. She didn’t mention that that wasn’t the reason she’d chosen it - she’d planned on them watching _The Grinch_ for weeks. It was the perfect Christmas Day movie: not too long, funny, easy to watch while doing other stuff, and appropriate for kids. They could definitely do this every year.

 

“Wow, this is awful,” Jake said. For a moment Amy thought he meant the movie, but she quickly realised he meant the turkey he’d just eaten. Curious, Amy cut a small piece of the turkey for herself and tried it.

 

“Oh god,” she said, valiantly resisting the urge to spit it back out. She forced herself to chew, and it was… well, it was terrible, but it wasn’t _inedible_. There was just way too much salt, and it had a horrible slimy texture, and the gravy kind of tasted like fish in a weird way…?

 

Whatever. It wasn’t the worst thing to have happened that day, not by a long shot.

 

Jake gave up on the good after a few mouthfuls- for someone who regularly ate some disgusting things, he had a very low tolerance for things he didn't like- Amy forced down half of it before giving up. She curled up against Jake’s side and tried to focus on the movie and not on how much of a disaster the day had been.

 

It was insane, when she thought about it. How had so much gone wrong? Sure, her screwing up the lunch wasn’t that much of a stretch of the imagination, but a spider’s nest on the tree? Destroying the wallpaper? No food?

 

That said, if there was one thing that Amy was glad had worked out that day, it was curling up with Jake on the couch to just chill out and watch a movie. They hadn’t had much of a chance to relax together for weeks, what with working alternate weekends and getting ready to move in together - moments like this made all the stress worth it, and even with the disasters of the day looming in her mind, Amy was glad they were where they were.

 

There was about forty minutes of the movie left when Jake's phone suddenly lit up, the ringtone too loud and shrill in the silence. It was his most annoying ringtone, and Amy knew exactly who was on the other end.

 

The Nine-Nine.

 

And if they were calling him on Christmas Day, on a day he'd specifically been given off then…

 

Jake winced at her and reached out for his phone, and Amy pulled away, sitting up properly as he answered.

 

“Peralta...what?”  Jake frowned at whatever the person on the other end was saying. “Are you sure it's… right.”

 

Amy raised an eyebrow at him, and he gave her an exasperated look.

 

“Okay, well can you… I can come in tomorrow to… oh, _perfect_.” His look turned into one of annoyance and then guilt as he looked back at Amy. She knew exactly what was coming, and sighed. “Okay I guess - I guess I'll come in. See you in twenty.”

 

Jake rolled his eyes as the person on the phone said something else. “Yeah. Merry Christmas,” he said bitterly before hanging up. He looked at Amy and groaned.

 

“They got Simmons,” he said.

 

Amy managed to drum up a smile. “That's great,” she said. And it was, really. Jake had been after Simmons for an assault for weeks.

 

“Yeah,” Jake said. He ran a hand through his hair. “I have to go and lead the interrogation - he’ll only talk to me and apparently the prosecutor wants it done today because -”

 

Amy smiled again, a little more genuinely this time. “It's okay,” she said. “Really. Go.”

 

“I'm sorry,” Jake said, leaning in to kiss her. He rested his forehead against hers. “I'll be quick.”

Amy squeezed his shoulders and have him another quick kiss. “Go get him.”

 

Well, so much for enjoying quiet time together. Jake was out of the door in under a minute, and Amy sat silently on the couch, staring at the paused face of the Grinch on her screen and feeling like she could really understand where he was coming from.

 

Amy felt a lump in her throat again, this time accompanied by the sting of tears in her eyes. If she was going to cry, now was the time to do it- she definitely didn't want to cry in front jake.

 

Thing was, though, she didn't _want_ to cry at all. It wasn't like anything _truly_ disastrous had happened - they were both fine, nothing was going to cost them loads of money to fix or anything like that. She was spending the day with the man she loved, or had been until he’d had to leave. There were plenty of people in the world who were far worse off than her.

 

It was just… so _frustrating_ . Was it really too much to ask to have a nice, relaxing Christmas without _every little thing_ going wrong? To make some memories, create some traditions, lay some foundations for the future?

 

Amy swallowed hard and turned the movie back on. She cried at the end but that was totally because of the Grinch’s heart growing three sizes. No other reason at all.

 

XXX

 

It was almost eight before Jake text Amy to say he was on his way home. She'd actually been napping on the couch when she got the text, but she pulled herself together and tried to make sure that you couldn't tell she'd been moping all day just from looking at her.

 

She hadn't been moping that much. Really.

 

She was starving, though, and needed some proper food. They only had slightly stale bread and four eggs, but it was enough to make scrambled eggs on toast for them. _That_ she could do. Or, rather, that she could do if she wasn’t distracted by three spider babies on the kitchen counter.

 

Amy had just poured the whisked eggs into the pan when she noticed them crawling by the coffee maker and she jumped so much that her hand slipped against the pan and got burned. Not a lot but - you know - any burn is not fun. Amy stuck her hand under the faucet for a few seconds but quickly decided capturing the spiders was the more pressing task, so she went searching for a piece of paper to coax them onto before flinging them out of the window. There was a bit of a breeze and one of them managed to swing back down on the windowsill, so there was a couple more minutes of catch the spider to play before Amy could close the window and turn back to the eggs.

 

She quickly opened the window again.

 

The eggs were literally smoking, and Amy hurriedly moved the pan over to the window to make sure the smoke didn't spread to, say, the smoke alarm. Being responsible for evacuating the building on Christmas Day would be the icing on the crappy cake of the day.

 

And, of course, this was the moment Jake walked back in.

 

“I feel like maybe we shouldn’t let you in the kitchen without supervision.”

 

Amy blinked back tears. From the smoke, obviously, not from anything else. “It’s - it wasn’t - there were spiders and I had to -”

 

Jake crossed the kitchen and took the pan from Amy’s trembling hand - why was she trembling, jeez - and put it down on the counter. He turned back to Amy, and she knew he was either going to joke or be sympathetic, and she honestly wasn’t equipped to handle either at that moment.

 

“So, Simmons,” she said brightly. “Did you crack him?”

 

Jake frowned slightly, probably at how high her voice was, before replying. “Piece of cake,” he said. “His associate was a bit more of a challenge, though, I’m sorry it took so long.”

 

“Not your fault,” Amy said dismissively. There was an awkward silence, in which they both looked down at the burned eggs in the pan. Amy swallowed.

 

“I, er, it was going to be scrambled eggs, but like I said there were spiders and I got distracted,” she said lamely.

 

Jake nodded. “I can make some omelettes or something, if you want,” he offered.

 

“Actually, that was the last of our eggs,” said Amy.

 

“Ah,” said Jake. “Good thing I had a sandwich at the precinct.” He smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

 

Amy had to swallow hard again. “Yeah, that's… good thinking,” she said quietly, leaning back against the kitchen counter and blinking rapidly.

Jake reached out to her. “Amy…”

 

Amy leapt away before he could touch her and headed briskly for the living room. “Come on, I have something to show you,” she said. “One last tradition.”

 

Jake followed her slowly. “I think we should give up on Christmas at this point,” he said. “Crawl into bed with the covers over our heads and not surface until tomorrow. It seems like the safe option.”

 

Honestly, it wasn’t a bad idea - which was just about the most depressing thing ever. But Amy was determined that _something_ would go right, that they would have at least one good memory of this horrific day, so she faked a laugh.

 

“No I have one more thing…” she said, opening the sideboard and pulling out her surprise. “Tada!”

 

Jake’s eyebrows shot up. “A menorah?”

 

“Yep!” Amy said with a grin. “So we’re combining both our traditions. See?”

 

Jake just looked confused. “Hanukkah was like two weeks ago,” he said.

 

He was right, of course, and Amy felt all her enthusiasm just drain out of her. “I know but I…” she said. She sat down on the couch with the menorah still in her hands, and sighed. “I just thought…”

 

Jake sat down next to her and put his arm around her waist. “It's great,” he said. She gave him a dubious look, and he smiled before kissing her on the temple. “Honestly, thank you,” he said. “I haven’t had one of these in years.”

 

Amy smiled a little and leant into him, and he kissed her forehead. “You want to light it?” He asked.

 

Amy nodded and sat up straight. She’d put candles in the menorah earlier that day, and the matches were on the coffee table. “Yeah,” she said. She handed the menorah to Jake and lit a match, and paused with it at the first candle. “Is there a special prayer or something you say?”

 

“Probably,” Jake said dismissively. Amy winced at his tone - it wasn’t his fault; he wasn’t a practicing Jew no matter how many jokes about rabbis he made, and he was clearly only going along with this to humour her. It was such a stupid idea.

 

“Amy, what's wrong?” Jake said softly.

 

Amy couldn’t stand the look of concern on Jake’s face, and she forced a smile. “Nothing! Okay, here we go.”

 

She got four candles lit before disaster struck. She’d dithered too long and not paid attention and her hands were trembling and, well, she didn’t notice the flame on the match reach her fingers until it reached them and burned her - her second burn in ten minutes.  

 

“Ow, dammit!” She exclaimed, dropping the match.

 

It all happened so quickly.

 

The match dropped down onto their upholstered, _highly flammable_ couch, and almost instantly the cushion was on fire. Amy and Jake both jumped up, Jake still holding the menorah, which tilted enough to dump two of the already-lit candles out, also landing on the couch. So suddenly there were three fires.

“Oh my god!” Screeched Amy.

 

“Shit!”

 

Amy grabbed the blanket from where it was folded over the couch arm closest to her, and pointed to the kitchen.

 

“Get the fire extinguisher!” She yelled to Jake. He started to run for the kitchen, menorah still in hand, before Amy yelled after him. “No, wait, turn off the smoke alarm or the entire building’s gonna get evacuated!”

 

Jake skidded to a halt, dumped the menorah on the kitchen table (thankfully without setting it on fire too), and grabbed a chair to reach the smoke alarm.

 

Amy dropped the blanket and ran for the kitchen to get the fire extinguisher herself.

 

“Got it!” Jake called to her as she ran back past him a moment later, and Jake was on her heels as she reached the couch again and pulled the pin out of their fire extinguisher. She had a second to notice that the blanket she’d dropped had landed on the couch and _also_ caught fire, before foam was shooting out of the hose in her hand and it was all she could do to aim properly at the fire.

 

The fire extinguisher did its job, and it was out in about ten seconds or so. Jake threw open all the window in the room as wide as they would go, and as the smoke cleared Amy saw that the damage was minimal. Well, the couch was ruined, obviously, but the fire hadn’t got any further than the couch cushions, and so all in all it had been a lucky escape.

 

There was a long silence, eventually broken by Jake. “Are you alright?”

 

Amy didn’t think she’d ever been so far from _alright_ in all her life, and she wanted to say so, but the only thing she was capable of doing in that moment was laughing. And crying. It was a weird kind of laugh/cry hybrid, and she sank to the floor, dropped the fire extinguisher, put her head in her hands and just gave into it.

 

“Um, Amy?”

 

There was a knock on the door, which made Amy laugh harder.

 

“I’ll, er, see who that is,” Jake said. He stepped around her and headed to the door.

 

Amy’s laughter turned a little less maniacal and more giggly and hiccupy, and so she could hear a little of what was being said; it was the building’s Super - someone had clearly heard yelling and the sound of a fire extinguisher, and maybe even seen smoke out of the window - whatever, someone had tattled on them. They were obviously making a great impression on their new neighbours.

 

It made Amy laugh again.

 

Jake was talking to the super for a few minutes, and it was enough time for Amy to sober slightly. By the time Jake closed the door and walked back into the living room, she was a sitting cross-legged with her chin on her hands, staring at the ruined couch with a vacant smile. It was a fantastic symbol of her plans for the day, and how utterly they’d been ruined. She should take a photo of the couch and get it framed as a reminder that she can’t have nice things.

 

Jake stopped on the threshold and stared at her silently for a few moments, before clearing his throat.

 

“It was the Super,” he said. “I gave him a truncated version. He might need to do an inspection next week.”

 

“Okay,” said Amy, still staring at the couch.

 

Another pause.

 

“You must be starving,” Jake said. “I’ll go to the deli.”

“It won’t be open today,” said Amy dully. “Just order Chinese.”

 

“Okay.” He stepped out of the room again, and she heard him talking on his phone. She was glad he was ordering food. Food would be good. She hadn’t had anything except some toast and half a disgusting microwave dinner all day.

 

Amy dropped her face into her hands and groaned. How… _how_ had today gone so _wrong_?

 

“Alright, it’s on its way,” said Jake suddenly. There were footsteps, and then he was sitting on the floor next to her. Amy lowered her hands and looked at him, steeling herself for his inevitable pity.

 

There was probably more concern than pity in his eyes, but either way it was unbearable. “Are you okay?” He asked softly.

 

Amy snorted. “Fine.”

 

Jake sighed. “Amy - it’s fine,” he said. He put his hand on her knee and squeezed. “It’s just a couch.”

 

“It’s not just the couch, it’s everything!” Amy exclaimed wildly. “Everything I’ve _touched_ today has been a complete disaster!”

 

Jake actually leaned back a bit at her outburst, and Amy groaned into her hands again. “I’m sorry,” she said after a moment.

 

“For what?” Said Jake. He put both his hands on her knees. “Amy, honey, none of this has been your fault.”

 

Amy lowered her hands to give him an unimpressed look. “What about the turkey?”

 

Jake’s mouth twitched. “Okay, maybe the turkey,” he said. “But I already knew you were a terrible cook; I’m just glad I didn’t have to pretend to like it.”

 

Amy knew he was kidding, and that he was right, and she didn’t want to be the person who couldn’t take a joke, but his words were just a reminder that she’d been an idiot to even attempt something like today. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, pressing her forehead into her leg and closing her eyes.

 

“I’m kidding,” Jake said quickly.

 

Amy raise her head to give him a weak smile. “I know.”

 

Jake’s face was a hundred percent concerned now. “Seriously, Amy, what’s wrong?”

“I just wanted to have a good Christmas,” said Amy. Tears stung her eyes, and she tried to wipe them away as the words came tumbling out of her. “It’s our first one living together and I wanted it to be special, I wanted us to start something, to start new traditions that were just ours and we would do them with our kids and we could tell them about our first Christmas together and now… well, we can’t do that. It’s ruined. I ruined it.”

 

Amy buried her face in her hands and screwed her eyes shut as tight as possible. She… why the _hell_ had she just said that? As if the day hadn’t been bad enough, she’d had spill out exactly why she’d been acting so crazy about Christmas, and started babbling about the two of them having _kids_ which was, yes, a kind of hypothetical future that they had together but hadn’t really discussed and now he was going to freak out…

 

The silence was getting longer and longer, and Amy was considering the pros and cons of running away to lock herself in the bathroom when she felt Jake shift closer, and then his hand on her knee again.

 

“Ames… you didn’t ruin anything,” he said, and he sounded so earnest that Amy lifted her head. He was right next to her, facing the opposite way, and with one hand on her knee and the other on her hip his face was only inches from hers.

 

He smiled - a big, genuinely happy smile, and then quirked an eyebrow at her. “I’m going to tell our kids _all_ about today,” he said.

 

Amy couldn’t help but huff a little laugh. “Jake…”

 

“Seriously, all of it,” he said, grinning hugely. “The turkey and the walls and the spiders and the _couch_ \- hell, I’m probably going to make a slideshow presentation about what a beautiful disaster today was and make the kids sit through it.” He shifted even closer and rested his chin on her knee. “That can be our Christmas tradition.”

 

Amy’s heart was in her throat, and there was what must have been the world’s stupidest smile on her face. “What, you humiliating me in front of our children?” She said softly.

Jake grinned again and sat up straight. “Well let’s face it, most of the year I’ll be humiliating _myself_ in front of our children, so you’ve gotta give me one day…”

 

Amy surged forward and kissed him, smiling against his lips and then sighing as he pulled her closer to him and deepened it. Yes, the day had been a disaster from start to finish, and nothing that she had planned for their first Christmas had worked out. But the important thing was it was the first, the first of many, and even if the rest of the day had been disaster that particular moment was perfect.

 

Amy pulled back from the kiss and smiled when he gave her that dopey look she adored. “I love you,” she said, leaning forward to peck him on the lips again.

 

She tucked her hair back behind her ears and then nodded decisively. “Let's put on _Die Hard_.”

 

Jake’s grin blossomed on his face. “See? Best Christmas ever.”

 

XXX

 

_Sixteen Years Later_

 

The front door closed and then Jake’s voice filled the house. “Food’s here!” He yelled. “Kids! Foooooood!”

 

Amy grinned and gave Ben a carton of juice and a handful of cutlery to take through to the living room.

 

She heard Jake’s footsteps approaching, and then their daughter’s voice. “Did you get ginger chicken?”

 

“ _Did I get ginger chicken_?” Jake repeated indignantly. “What kind of disrespectful question is that to ask your father on Christmas Day? What do you take me for?”

 

Millie was giggling, and Amy grinned as she called out to her. “Millie, come help with the plates!”

 

Millie scampered into the kitchen, followed by Jake, who paused on the threshold to yell up the stairs to their eldest daughter. “Come on Lottie!”

 

Amy handed a stack of plates to Millie to take through, and she and Jake started unloading the Chinese takeout cartons.

 

“I’m not hungry,” Lottie announced, slinking into the kitchen with a scowl.

 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jake scoffed, not even looking round at her.

 

Lottie walked into the middle of the kitchen and folded her arms. “Seriously, Dad, we ate a huge lunch at grandma’s _five hours ago_ ,” she said.

Jake threw an amused look Amy’s way before turning round to face their daughter. “Exactly,” he said. “ _Five hours_? You’re a growing girl, come and eat something before you waste away.” He waved a bag of prawn crackers at her, knowing full well that they were her weakness, and sure enough she came over and snatched them out of his hand, rolling her eyes.

 

“Can we at least sit on the couch to eat?”

 

“Absolutely not, it’s Christmas Day,” said Amy immediately. She handed Lottie a stack of glasses to take through and gave her an imperious look. “Christmas Day is not a day for sitting on the couch and eating off your lap.”

“That’s right,” said Jake. “We’re going to sit on the floor with our Chinese takeout and watch _Die Hard_ , the way baby Jesus intended it.”

 

He and Amy both smirked, and Lottie groaned. “You guys are so weird,”

 

Jake laughed and grabbed the tray with the takeout on, heading out of the kitchen. Amy put her arm around her daughter and followed him. “Come on Lottie,” she said, grinning. “It’s tradition.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



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